FOREST AND STREAM 
1049 
PAIN IN THE ANIMAL WORLD 
DOES THE BEETLE THAT WE TREAD UPON “FEEL 
A PANG AS GREAT AS WHEN A GIANT DIES?” 
By B. C. Tillett. 
D URING one of my walks in the country last 
summer I saw a school lad admonishing 
some other boys for stoning a toad. And 
not content with rebuking them, he ran and 
caught up the toad and hid him out of harm’s 
way. That lad would, from sheer interest and 
curiosity, watch anything alive “just to see what 
it would do.” His knowledge of many birds, 
beasts, and insects, commencing in this way, soon 
gave him a sympathetic insight into the most in¬ 
timate character and doings of living things. He 
would lift a snail, a beetle, or a frog into the se¬ 
curity of the fence, rather than suffer the appre¬ 
hension that it might be trodden upon by a passer¬ 
by. Such a lad, grown to manhood, will assured¬ 
ly desire to lift his fellows out of rough and 
dangerous ways into the security of a peaceful 
and painless life. Of such stuff are reformers 
made. 
How many thick-skinned people there are who 
stolidly harbor the illusion that birds and animals 
feel no pain. This may be partly due to the fact 
that many creatures seem to lack the power to 
give vent to cries of pain. Many creatures, as 
for instance, the pigeon or the dove, will suffer 
pain and even serious injury in a pathetically 
mute and expressionless manner. It is possibly 
such instances which lead some people to imagine 
that animals do not suffer pain, or at least not 
in the same way as human beings. 
People will pluck live poultry, convey live birds 
wih cruelty, torture song-birds in a barbarous 
fashion, and even starve captives of the feathered 
tribe. Again, there are men who cannot resist 
the impulse to aim a gun at anything which 
moves. Thus whole bird species suffer decima¬ 
tion—to satisfy the epicure, may be, or the 
“sport,” or the love of decoration. 
Taking the animal world as a whole, it is per¬ 
haps admissable that there is a considerable range 
of variability in the sensibility and individual spe¬ 
cies to pain. But it is self-evident that this varia¬ 
bility in the degree of pain nowhere extends to 
the verge of insensibility. All the world over, 
the nervous organization of Nature’s creatures is 
built upon the same plan and principle, and with 
the same character and quality of vital material 
nervous matter is identical all the way from 
micro-organism up to man. Marked symptoms 
of pain are observable among animalcules of the 
minutest size. If we drop from a needle’s point 
the veriest minim of acetic acid into a water drop 
of micro-organisms, we immediately see the tiny 
creatures flee from its presence as if in fear of 
pain or extinction. If we feed a bell-flower ani¬ 
malcule with yeast-cells, it will vomit, and after¬ 
wards refuse them. Another micro-organism has 
the power of attacking a smaller one by dis¬ 
charging nettle-like filaments or darts. The or¬ 
ganism attacked will immediately stop swimming, 
and feebly beating the water, is seized and eaten. 
With regard to the higher animals: Pain ap¬ 
pears to be the result of stimulation of the sur¬ 
face nerves of the animal skin. As the nerves of 
the eye are excited by light, and vision ensues, 
so when certain nerves of the skin are excited, 
pain ensues. The animal skin may be regarded 
as a sense organ, responding to touch and pres¬ 
sure by one set of nerves, and to temperature by 
another set. If this were not so, it is difficult to 
conceive how an organism could exist and sur¬ 
vive as a separate individual. 
As to the susceptibility of animals to feel pain, 
no definite statement can be made. While many 
instances could be cited which would seem to 
point to their sense of pain being very slight— 
seemingly non-existent—others are not wanting 
to indicate that the contrary view is the more cor¬ 
rect one. It is at all events safer to assume that 
animals and birds do feel pain more or less acute¬ 
ly, and as their sufferings are often caused while 
meekly ministering to our wants and gratifying 
our pleasures, we should do all in our power to 
alleviate their distress. 
Some remarkable instances, which if there were 
none to controvert them, would point conclusively 
to the lack of all sense of pain in animals, are 
given by Colonel Sir Charles W. Wilson in his 
work “From Korti to Khartum.” Speaking of 
camels, for instance, he says, “they showed no 
alarm, and did not seem to mind being hit. One 
heard a heavy thud, and looking round, saw blood 
rushing from a wound. The camel went on 
chewing his cud as if nothing had happened.” 
Again, “A shot carried away the lower jaw of 
one of the artillery camels. The camel walked 
on as if nothing had happened, and carried its 
load to the end of the day.” Speaking of rein¬ 
deer Mr. Lamon says, “We broke one of the 
forefeet of an old stag from an unseen ambush; 
his companions ran away, and the wounded deer, 
after making some attempts to follow looked 
about a little and seeing nothing, actually began 
to graze on his three remaining legs.” 
I think it is Sir John Lubbock, in his “Senses 
of Animals,” who relates a remarkable experi¬ 
ment tried on a dragon-fly. The entire abdomen 
of the insect having been removed, a straw of 
the same length and weight was carefully fixed 
in its place, whereupon the insect flew away. The 
same author, I believe, tells of the abdomen of a 
wasp having been removed while intent on feed¬ 
ing at some honey, and how the wasp continued 
to feed unconcernedly. 
But if anything can prove to the sceptic the 
reality, the universality, and the significance of 
pain in the animal world, surely the existence of 
offensive and defensive organs throughout all 
life, ought to. We need not ask why the wasp 
or the bee possesses a sting, or the serpent its 
fangs, or the buffalo its horns. But if we ask 
why the brambles have their thorns; the cactus 
its powerful spines; the stinging-nettle its poison¬ 
ous hairs; the Venus fly-trap its mechanism for 
insect assassination; the pitcher plant its juices 
for insect drowning; what is the answer? Just 
this; that the existence of such organs of offence 
and defence implies also the corresponding ex¬ 
istence of the sensibility to pain, injury and 
death. They are a warning to the animal world 
that trespassers will suffer, even unto death. And 
as Shakespeare has finely said: 
“The sense of death is most in apprehension; 
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon 
In corporal sufferance, finds a pang as great, 
As when a giant dies.” 
But was Shakespeare, with all his wisdom, lit¬ 
erally correct in saying that the poor beetle that 
we tread upon finds a pang as great as when a 
giant dies? Death which is instantaneous as 
from a lightning flash is suffered by the victim 
unconsciously. There is no pang. The person 
who is struck by lightning knows nothing, he 
neither sees the flash, nor hears the thunder. 
Few indeed are there who die so merciful a 
death as this. And is it not so with the bird or 
animal who falls before the hunter’s gun? 
Wherein then does cruelty enter into sport as 
some would have us believe it does? It finds no 
place at all save when by misjudged aim the bird 
is merely wounded. 
Honestly can it be said of every man entitled 
to be called a sportsman, that he finds no pleas¬ 
ure in seeing a wounded bird or animal, if for 
no other reason than that it is a reflection upon 
his marksmanship. And were sportsmen to be 
more sure of their aim, even these instances 
would be fewer still. He who can stoop to in¬ 
flict useless pain on the birds and animals which 
contribute so much to the joy of outdoor life by 
their beauty and their song, is unworthy of the 
name. It is such as these who justly merit the 
criticisms of opponents of such “sport.” The 
sportsman all the world over is he who wages 
his skill against that of bird or beast, often at 
great personal risk. If in the undertaking of 
these pleasures the lives of birds or beasts are 
shortened, we may remember that life in the 
animal kingdom is comparatively short. Again 
it is not too 'much to say it is a case of “Eat or 
be eaten,” from birth to death! Death at the 
hunter’s hand comes quickly and generally with 
less pain, it may be said, than where, even though 
the natural course of his life has been run, the 
end comes, as it usually does, by capture on the 
part of a stronger animal enemy, or a slow linger¬ 
ing death, that perhaps of starvation. 
THE DINNER OF DADDYLONGLEGS. 
By D. Cromett Clark. 
I WISH to make a record of a natural history 
observation which fell to me during the course 
of a vacation spent in a pedestrian tour in 
the Canadian Province of New Brunswick. On 
September n, 1915, I was walking from Le- 
preau to Musquash, and, something more than 
half way of the ten miles between the two ham¬ 
lets, stopped at a brook on the northern slope of 
a hill, for a drink of water. The wooden plank 
bridge was too high for the taking of a drink 
from it with a dipper, so a passage was worked 
through the thick bushes to a point some six or 
eight rods above, where a pool about five feet 
across was fed by a trickling little current, while 
the main stream rushed down on the farther 
side. A nice large smooth rock afforded a seat 
with my back to the grassy bank, while feet were 
stretched out to the somewhat lower rock just be¬ 
yond. After a rest of fifteen minutes or so, I 
was about to reload my shoulders with the pack 
when a fat green worm about an inch and one- 
third in length came tumbling down the brook 
and into the pool just below me. I was won¬ 
dering if he was of a species known to me, and 
noticed him climbing upon a dead leaf which was 
slowly turning in the otherwise imperceptible eddy 
in the center of the pool. 
The pool was inhabited by six of those queer 
specimens of animal life—probably insects—vari¬ 
ously known as water daddylonglegs, skippers, 
water horses, and perhaps by other names. They 
were darting restlessly about the pool with their 
feet resting lightly on the water. No purpose 
was apparent in their movements until one of 
them bumped against the worm on his leaf refuge. 
The insect drew back three inches or so, and 
then darted directly at the worm, following his 
